Mama Dearest

by E. Lynn Harris

  If they were to buy it, where would Ava stay? She’d be homeless, and although she never thought it possible, that would be a worse situation than being in prison. The husband who’d divorced her while she was incarcerated had made it quite clear Ava wouldn’t be welcome at his door. Thinking fast, she answered, “No. This afternoon isn’t good.”

  “May I ask why?” The assistant sounded annoyed.

  “Because I’m stepping out,” Ava said quickly.

  “That’s no problem, we have a key.”

  “No. Let’s just schedule it for another day, shall we?”

  “Ms. Braxton, we’re talking over two million dollars. This is a tough market. The Povliks are only in town for another two days. If we can’t see your apartment today, I’m going to have to show them something similar in the area.”

  “Then maybe that’s what you should do. Besides, I’m seriously considering taking it off the market,” Ava said.

  “Are you sure?” the woman asked in disbelief.

  “What part of that don’t you understand? Good day, Sharon.”

  About an hour later, Ava found herself on the corner of 86th and Lexington Avenue at the boutique grocer Euperican. It feels good to be back, Ava thought as she strolled the aisles of the store that carried the freshest fruit, seafood, breads and fine wines—in short, everything Ava was accustomed to and missed.

  As she slowly and carefully walks down the narrow aisle of well-stocked domestic and imported food from all over the world, Ava doesn’t know what to put into her cart first. She decides on a nice bottle of Pinot Noir and a box of crackers.

  By the time she reaches the checkout counter, there are two bottles of wine, champagne, a jar of inexpensive caviar, block chocolate, strawberries, fresh prawns, two very lean medium-size filets and a chocolate truffle that Ava knows will melt on her tongue like butter on a warm biscuit.

  Ava takes each item from her cart and places it carefully on the conveyor belt as the smooth-faced checkout girl scans the items.

  “That will be $282.95, ma’am,” the girl said with a smile.

  Ava pulls money out of one of Yancey’s designer handbags she’s borrowed. She starts counting the bills, laying them flat on the counter’s surface. “That’s two hundred and ten, two hundred and twenty,” and then Ava lays her last bill down. “Two hundred and twenty-five dollars.” She looks up at the girl. “How much did you say it was again?”

  “It’s 282.95, ma’am.”

  “I see,” Ava said, more embarrassed than she’d ever been on New York’s East Side.

  “You want to put this on a credit card?” the cashier asked.

  “Don’t you think that if I had a credit card I would have given it to you?” Ava snapped.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that …”

  “Yes, you are—very sorry,” Ava said as she sank her hand back into her purse, fishing around for more money. When she found nothing, she became friendly once more. “Just put back one of the bottles of wine, hon.”

  ONCE BACK AT YANCEY’S residence, Ava takes a warm bubble bath using Yancey’s best bath salts. She washes her hair with a shampoo she has never seen before, and it is in such a beautiful muted gold bottle, Ava knows it had to have cost big money. It left her hair feeling cleaner than a visit to the famed Mr. Jason Salon in Beverly Hills.

  She smooths an orange-ginger lotion over her body, paints her toenails with a pale peach polish, her fingernails with clear polish, then sifts through Yancey’s drawers and finds a long, flowing, whore-red nightgown with a Saks Fifth Avenue tag still on it. It looks a little small, but Ava tells herself she is wearing this gown.

  She squirms into it, removes the towel from her head, blow-dries her hair, leaving it wild and soft about her head and neck. Then she applies a light, age-defying cream to her face.

  She stands in the large marble-floored bathroom, with its huge mirror and bright, circular dressing room bulbs all around it, and gazes at herself. She is back, she tells herself. Gone is the life from behind bars, the faded denim jumpers with her inmate number stenciled across the left breast. No more trying to be beautiful with nothing more than a plastic comb and a bottle of drugstore foundation, attempting to apply it in a mirror that was nothing more than a thin square of very shiny reflective metal. No more of that. Ava is back to the life she is used to.

  Ava goes to the kitchen, pulls the steak from the broiler, sets it on a tray along with a bottle of wine, a beautiful glass, and colorful steamed vegetables and brings it into the living room. She sets the tray on the coffee table, before the sofa and in front of a fifty-two-inch Sony LCD HDTV, then grabs the remote and turns to the Fine Living Channel. She then thumbs the volume to a perfect level.

  Half sitting, half lying across the sofa, her hair as silky as the red gown draped over her shoulders, Ava pours herself a glass of wine. She closes her eyes as she takes her first sip and then raises the glass before her and makes a simple toast.

  “To me and revenge, baby.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  The last night of the tour was a good night. A very good night. I smiled brightly as I bowed before another standing ovation at the packed house at the Raleigh theater. I almost broke out in tears. Not tears of joy, because I would now have to return to New York and my mounting money problems. I knew if this was Broadway, and I had ripped it the way I had, I would’ve been getting seriously paid and most likely auditioning to do other shows. But all I would be getting for my Tony-worthy performance was a check barely enough to get me through a week in New York.

  I sat in my dressing room, staring at myself in the mirror as I took the stage makeup off my face. My cell phone sat just to the side of me, but it hadn’t rung in days and there were no missed calls or texts. This was starting to piss me off. S. Marcus hadn’t called in a couple of days, and I was beginning to worry that he’d already moved on. I needed him for two things: the good loving he could deliver and to see if he could really help me get a reality show of my own.

  I smeared some more makeup off my cheek with a cotton puff, and angrily threw it on the dresser, forcing myself to admit why he hadn’t called. I must have appeared too desperate. I was acting like some dumb schoolgirl and I knew better. This man had fucked me one good time, and I was acting like I was sprung. Granted, it was some of the best sex I’d ever had, but still I needed to pull myself together.

  A knock came at the door. I ignored it, not wanting to be bothered. It was most likely some castmates with their best friend from Bump-fuck, Arkansas, who wanted to take a picture with me and get an autograph so they could post it on their MySpace page.

  Another knock. “Please, not tonight. Go away!” I shouted, looking at the door through the reflection in my mirror. After a moment of silence, I went back to my makeup, figuring they got the message, but the knocking came again.

  I shot up from my stool, stormed across the room, and flung open the door. I was met with a wall of roses. I couldn’t see the face of the fan who held them, but roses always made me feel better. Most times.

  “Look!” I said, no longer controlling my anger. “I appreciate the roses but—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, my fan brought the flowers down, and I gasped when S. Marcus appeared behind them with a broad smile on his face.

  “You going to talk to me like that?” he joked, stepping into my dressing room. I took a step back, allowing him in. “After I take off from work, fly all the way over here, trying to surprise you, this is the reception I get?” He walked me backward across the room until my back was pressed against the wall.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, my voice sounding like a little girl.

  He looked at me for a moment with those dark, hypnotizing eyes, as if he was trying to decide what to do with me. Had I messed this up for good? I wondered.

  Without saying a word, he dropped the roses onto the sofa beside us, grabbed me tight, and then pressed his open mouth to mine. His lips were softer than I rememb
ered. His tongue slid into my mouth, and it was full, sweet and playful. I kissed him back, sucking his tongue like it was his dick.

  “Oh, baby,” I said, slowly releasing one of my naked legs from the robe. He took hold of the other, lifting me up, spreading them open, and pressing his throbbing manhood against my now moist center. “Can we … can we?” I tried to say, digging my nails into the back of his jacket. “Can we get out of here?”

  He pulled his full lips from mine and said, “Let’s make it happen.”

  An hour later, we were in a suite on the concierge level of a hotel that had to be the best in Durham, North Carolina. S. Marcus was on his hands and knees, stark naked. I, too, was naked, on my back, my knees bent, my legs open like butterfly wings. S. Marcus’s head was buried, can I say, in the dead center of those wings, and he was making them flap.

  I didn’t know what he was doing to me, but I was moaning his name one minute, and screaming, calling him all kinds of “motherfuckers” the next. This man was making me feel so good. He scooped up the back of my knees, looping them over his shoulders, opening me all the way. He rose up to look at me, the candlelight hitting his face so I could just see those shiny lips of his, and his penetrating stare that had my heart racing.

  “I want you to relax, okay,” S. Marcus said in a soothing voice. “Because I’m about to make you come, but not just once, baby. I’m going to make you keep coming till you tell me to stop. Is that okay with you?”

  I tried to speak, but I was breathless from all the attention, so I just nodded my head.

  Before he went back down, he said, “This is going to feel like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, so don’t hold back on me. Scream if you feel the need. Dig your fingers in my back, but just enjoy yourself. Will you do that for me?”

  I swallowed hard and nodded again as I watched him slowly lower his head between my thighs. A moment later, I felt his warm, wet tongue enter me, followed by one of his fingers. My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and even though I tried to stop myself, for fear of looking silly, I screamed out, coming immediately, it felt so incredible.

  Afterward—I don’t know how long, because I had totally lost track of space and time while Marcus made me come five times—we lay in bed. Although I felt like never before lying there in his arms, I was still feeling anxious about going home to New York.

  “What’s bothering you, Yancey?” S. Marcus asked.

  “I’m okay.”

  “I’m sure you’re not but you will be soon.”

  “You sound sure of yourself.”

  “I’m always sure of myself.”

  I decided to be honest. “I was just thinking about tomorrow. Getting back to New York.”

  “Are you excited?”

  “I have mixed emotions,” I admitted. “It’s back to unemployment unless I can get a gig.”

  “Well, if it helps brighten your spirits, I talked to one of my boys and he is interested in looking into a reality show.” He gave me a look of curiosity. “I googled you and you’ve done some things. In fact, why didn’t you tell me? I think we got enough to make it happen.”

  I sat up suddenly. “You do?”

  S. Marcus smiled. “Yep, I do. We just need to get some upfront capital and shoot some episodes and get a network like Bravo or VH-1 to do a deal with us.”

  “I love Bravo. What kind of deal can we get?”

  “We’re looking at one where we would get a percentage of the commercial time sold. It can be very profitable. But we have to get the right producers onboard.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  Then he turned serious. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” I said, unable to guess what he was about to say.

  “Were you able to forgive your mother?”

  My heart dropped through the floor. My mother? Like my mother who was in jail?

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Come on, Yancey. It’s all out there on the internet. Every story that’s been written about you and then some. I read the reports about her shooting someone at a deposition and you testifying against her. Do you go and visit her in prison?”

  I kept my eyes averted. “I went a couple of times, but prison depressed me. I could never stay longer than an hour.”

  “So you do talk to her?”

  “She’s my mother and I have feelings for her,” I said defensively, “but our relationship is complex. It always has been but I wish it was the typical mother-daughter bond. I guess not every woman is cut out for motherhood.”

  He hadn’t sounded condemning. If anything, he seemed amused. “She sounds like a character.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “You don’t know the half of it. Can we can talk about something else? Please.”

  He pulled himself out from under me, then turned to face me, leaning up on one elbow. “We can talk about whatever you want or we don’t have to talk at all. Is that cool?”

  I was happy for a chance to change the subject. “Do you really think we can get them interested in me?” I asked, having a moment of insecurity. This incredible man had thrown me a lifeline, but as hopeful as I’d felt, I’d seen similar prospects come and go.

  “Girl, if they are foolish enough to pass on this, then I’ll take my own money and make it happen. I haven’t known you but a little over a week, but I’m already a big fan.”

  “For real? You would do that for me?”

  “What did I say?”

  All of a sudden I was so excited I wanted to burst. No, cry. No, jump on top of this man and fuck him like he’d never been fucked before, but I didn’t have any more energy. All I could think about was if this god, in the mortal form of S. Marcus, delivers on what he’s saying now, I won’t have to live in damn near poverty anymore. I won’t have to worry about the money to pay my mortgage, voice and acting lessons, eat and get new headshots. Life will be the way it once was, the way it is supposed to be.

  I threw my arms around S. Marcus, pulled him down on top of me, gave him a long, passionate kiss. “You just met me, and I don’t know how I will ever repay you.”

  S. Marcus smiled slyly, his dimple showing deep in his cheek. “There will be ways.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  It was day three and Yancey still had not come back home, nor had Ava had any luck in trying to contact her. She knew from the yearly letter Yancey sent her that she might be doing a bus-and-truck Broadway show but couldn’t remember which one.

  Ava sat at the bathroom mirror, in a thick white fluffy bathrobe, and applied more of the aloe vera–cucumber facial cream to her cheeks.

  It was midafternoon. She had taken another long, warm bubble bath, complete with a glass of wine, classical music playing softly throughout the house.

  This had been Ava’s life in the days since she was released from prison. Not rushing, not worrying, just taking time to pamper and treat herself to all the comforts that she had been accustomed to in her previous life.

  What else was she expected to do? Ava thought, turning on the warm water in the bathroom basin. She hadn’t money to do much else but occupy her time with leisurely, in-house activities. And since Yancey was probably traipsing about some white Mediterranean beach, or some European countryside, enjoying the spring with some rich young millionaire, Ava would just enjoy her time here till her daughter decided to reappear or the money ran out.

  Ava lowered her face into the bowl, cupped the running water, and splashed it on her face, washing the cream away.

  As she pats her face with a white face towel, she is happy that prison had not aged her as much as she knew it could have. On the day she had arrived, she took a look at the women with their split ends all over their heads and their bad haircuts and dye jobs. Many of those girls were Ava’s age, but with their skin wrinkling like the leather on an old Coach purse, and them carrying weight like a head chef of a Fifth Avenue restaurant, Ava was determined not to allow the same fate to befall her.
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  Looking at herself now, she faked a smile, which became a real one when she noticed the very few smile lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. Her skin was still relatively tight.

  Sure, she had put on fifteen pounds, but she wasn’t worried about that. Ava knew she could drop those. But you can’t drop age, and today she realized she needed her youthful appearance now more than ever. She had to get back on a twice-a-week facial regime once she got some money.

  Pulling a bath towel that matched her robe from the rack, she wrapped it around her still damp hair. Ava grabbed her half glass of wine from the vanity and headed into the living room.

  This morning, Ava had woken up with purpose. As much as she had enjoyed the last three days of watching soaps and relaxing, she could not escape the reality that her money was running out. Ava had a plan—two plans in fact, plan A and B. She cooked up plan A in prison while plan B had come to her only that morning.

  With her little black book of names and numbers of everybody she knew, both in the business and on a personal level, Ava started calling folks.

  It didn’t matter who they were, close girlfriends from the past whom Ava loved, or individuals she may have met only once and never wanted to speak to again—she greeted them all the same way.

  “Heeeyyyyyy, girl. It’s been too long. How you been doing? Yeah, I’ve been fine … Yeah, I’ve been away awhile … Oh, you heard I was in prison … Well, shit happens. What I was calling about is … uhm … times are a little hard, and …”

  Right then is when whoever she had on the line suddenly remembered an appointment they were late for. Ava had spoken to half a dozen “friends” this morning, mostly actors and singers she’d worked with, but also a couple of guys whom Ava had dated and dumped when she found out they didn’t have the money they said they did.

  She would’ve lied to the people she called about her jail stint, told them she was out of the country for seven years, working, but it seemed as though everybody and their mamas knew that Ava had been sent up. What did they do, she thought, skywrite the news, put it up on billboards, run commercials?